BBC probes claims of pressured giving at London ICC (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Was that an option to donate money? No, definitely not. If you didn't donate, there'll be a conversation about your seriousness about the church. Did you feel pressured to pay? There'll be a conversation with you and someone else about you not donating. You'll be made to feel bad and you'll be like, you're not really serious about God, you're sinning.

[00:00:21] Speaker 2: Those were three ex-members of the London International Christian Church who were all students when they joined. They say they devoted multiple hours a week to the church, leading them to spend less time with their families, friends or work, and told us they felt the church's expectations around donations felt overwhelming. We've seen videos of sermons from the church. These are some of the quotes from one of the services. We're waiting for you to either get preached out of your savings, so you start giving a little bit more money, and stop hiding the money that you have, because your savings isn't saving anybody but yourself. We need to have individuals that really want to sacrifice financially. If you don't love God, don't give. If you do love God, you'll give to help the churches grow. On its website, the London ICC describes itself as part of a global movement of more than 130 churches worldwide. It's one of the ICC churches which they say have been planted in London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Manchester and Dublin, with small operations in Oxford and Essex.

[00:01:18] Speaker 3: Everything that you didn't do that the church deemed as right, or something that you should do, would be seen as a lack of faith, would be seen as you falling back into sin.

[00:01:28] Speaker 1: That was stuck with me for a long time, sin, sinning, you're sinning, that's sin.

[00:01:35] Speaker 2: The BBC has been investigating the London International Christian Church on its fundraising practices. Jodie says she was messaged on Instagram by the church when she was 20. She says the day before her baptism into the church, she was informed about what she saw as mandatory donations. Arabella, not her real name, says she had a similar experience.

[00:01:59] Speaker 1: I didn't have a lot of money, so it was just coming out of my student finance.

[00:02:03] Speaker 2: When did you start paying?

[00:02:05] Speaker 1: When I got baptised.

[00:02:09] Speaker 2: Hanu was 19 and studying at Queen Mary University in London when he joined the church.

[00:02:15] Speaker 4: They'll embed it into your head that you'll rob it from God every time you don't give.

[00:02:19] Speaker 2: You sent them food, you sent them money, You sent them 46p and that left you with nothing.

[00:02:24] Speaker 1: Yeah.

[00:02:24] Speaker 2: Why did you feel like you had to give the last pennies in your account?

[00:02:30] Speaker 4: Because of the whole thing about robbing God. That was, that was, that was psyching me out, you know, I panicked.

[00:02:39] Speaker 2: The London International Christian Church told the BBC the allegation that undue pressure was put on the students for donations was untrue. It said its doctrine is that giving must be voluntary in keeping with one's means and never coerced or demanded. They say that any claim that donors were told it was a sin not to give, especially in circumstances where they lacked funds, is rejected in entirety as being utterly false and baseless. They say they offer financial aid if a member encounters financial difficulty. Jodie also said that church members repeatedly reported financial information from her.

[00:03:18] Speaker 3: It was her asking me to fill this out so she could see my exact incomings, outgoings, how much I was earning. It just felt super invasive, so I just felt incredibly uncomfortable. Hanu also says members of the church asked him for private financial information.

[00:03:34] Speaker 4: There was times when I joined when they really got invasive, where they started going through my bank statements, seeing how much I earned. That's where I went wrong.

[00:03:45] Speaker 2: The London International Christian Church told the BBC that asking members for financial information is not our practice or policy. They added they offer workshops on budgeting and financial skills, where members may provide information voluntarily. No person is instructed to request bank statements, income details, or private financial documents from others. They said such conduct would be contrary to the law They said such conduct would be contrary to the LICC's teachings and governance. The three students say they were actively encouraged to recruit other students by going to university campuses. Trinity College banned the Dublin branch of the church from its campuses in 2025. The university told the BBC the group was inviting students to social events that were in fact designed to bring them into a religious group, but said there was no issue with religious groups on campus more broadly. The BBC contacted the Dublin International Christian Church, but it did not respond. I asked Arabella and Hanu why they thought the church was recruiting students.

[00:04:49] Speaker 1: They have fresh minds and they're impressionable.

[00:04:51] Speaker 4: They're just easy to target. They're easy to target. And also when it comes to campuses itself, there's not a lot of security per se.

[00:05:00] Speaker 2: Jodie claimed she wasn't only encouraged to find students in real life, but online too.

[00:05:05] Speaker 3: Even when I was scrolling through BFF, Bumble BFF, I'd just be scrolling past like members of my church because so many of them were on there doing the same thing that I was doing. Would you be using your personal accounts? Yeah. So it's very person? Very, yeah. And they trust you more because you look like a normal person.

[00:05:22] Speaker 2: The London International Christian Church told the BBC it did not target, prey upon or manipulate students. It said evangelism among students is conducted openly and respectfully. Two people we spoke to say they were encouraged by church members to move out of their family homes and into homes where they were paying rent to a member of the church.

[00:05:45] Speaker 1: I moved into a household and it was really hard for me. You had four people, five people depending on the house, sometimes seven people in one house. And you just had to share a bed, live together, wake up at the same time. I told them within two months, I don't want to live there anymore. It was just feeling like I didn't have my own space for myself. It felt like everybody was intrusive. You couldn't come back or leave the house after 10pm. Didn't like that.

[00:06:19] Speaker 3: Is this one of the houses? That one there. Is that house over there?

[00:06:26] Speaker 4: Yeah. It's strange, it's weird. I think one of them saw me, maybe. If you want to advance in any way, you have to be around the disciples, the members of the ICC, because they'll keep you accountable. Do not be friends with the world. Don't really interact with people. The first month or two, I was sleeping on the sofa. There'll be times where there was seven people living there. There'll be times where members would have to bring mattress downstairs, sleep on mattresses on the floor.

[00:07:04] Speaker 2: Were you able to ever bring friends from outside to the house or invite anyone over?

[00:07:09] Speaker 4: Not at all. The only way that outsiders could come, if they were studying the Bible, to join the ICC.

[00:07:16] Speaker 2: The London International Christian Church told the BBC members may choose to live together for mutual support. It said, And added, Jodie says leaving was no easy feat.

[00:07:45] Speaker 3: It was really hard to leave. In the process of leaving, it was hard to leave because you're told you're going to hell. You're told that everything that you've been fearing, everything that you've been trusting God for, is not going to happen. You're told that God is going to leave you and you're just going to be alone.

[00:08:00] Speaker 2: The London ICC told the BBC the allegation that it teaches that leaving the church resolves in forfeiture of salvation is utterly false. It says that members are taught that salvation cannot be purchased. But it added, has spiritual consequences. That doctrine is not linked to donations, nor is it coercive. The LICC is a registered charity and has obligations to the Charity Commission and fundraising regulator. The Code of Fundraising Practice says fundraising must be carried out in a way that is not unreasonably intruding on a person's privacy, not putting undue pressure on a person to donate and not using unreasonably persistent approaches.

[00:08:45] Speaker 5: A donation needs to be a voluntary act. And that's the basic definition under law, under charity law and under regulations. A donation is something that you do freely without any undue pressure.

[00:08:57] Speaker 2: The fundraising regulator told us they have no enforcement powers, run relatively few investigations and refer to the Charity Commission when enforcement is needed. The Charity Commission say they would only become involved if a breach of another regulator's rules indicated a wider failure of governance.